It was the last period of a Friday that felt three years long. Mr. Henderson was droning about the quadratic formula, his voice a hypnotic lullaby of x ’s and y ’s. Leo’s friend, Maya, caught his eye from across the aisle. She tapped her nose twice. Operation: Pepperoni was a go.
The voice was a bucket of cold water. Leo looked up. Mr. Henderson stood over him, not with anger, but with a kind of sad, exhausted curiosity. The whole class was watching. Maya had her face buried in her hands.
To the school’s IT department, it was just another unblocked games site. To Leo and his friends, it was the Louvre, the Super Bowl, and the Library of Alexandria all rolled into one greasy, digital slice.